Joaquin Phoenix may star in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice

Joaquin Phoenix had such a good time being Paul Thomas Anderson’s monkey in The Master that he’s close to signing on to doing it all over again, this time as the star of Anderson’s Inherent Vice. As previously reported, Anderson has been working for a couple of years on his adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s quirky, rambling detective story, which concerns a pot-smoking private eye at the tail-end of the psychedelic ‘60s who gets swept up in a kidnapping case involving his ex-lover and a shadowy organization that bears no resemblance to any modern churches, so Anderson’s safe there. At one time, Robert Downey Jr. was loosely attached to the project, his ship crashing heedlessly on its shore after being lured in by the siren song of the words “quirky” and “rambling.” However, the role now appears to be Phoenix’s if he wants it. Considering Joaquin “Leaf” Phoenix sounds like a Pynchon character’s name already, he seems like a good fit.